When I was 12 I received an honor from the local branch of the Optimist Club and was named "Boy of the Year." This included a plaque and a dinner in my honor in L.A.'s Chinatown. As is typical of many kids, I had a very limited food tastes, and I couldn't stand the seaweed soup and other foods that were so foreign to me. After the dinner, my parents, grandparents and I walked around the area. I was immediately drawn to the tourist-oriented sleight-of-hand magic shop that was there and talked my parents into buying me a deck of Gypsy Witch Fortune Telling Cards (they wouldn't go for the rubber chicken). I eagerly read the little instruction booklet and gave my very first reading to my